Poem About The Moon

Poem about the moon

Lucien Vaudrey, high on life after getting a curse removed, waxing poetic about the moon. A Charm of Magpies is probably my favourite series, and listening to the audiobooks again put me in the mood for art ^_^

So, my Chinese (Mandarin) is pretty basic (apologies for the poor handwriting!). Certainly not good enough to be composing poetry. So I have Crane reciting the first two lines of the famous Tang Dynasty poem Looking At The Moon And Thinking Of One Far Away (望月怀远 ) by Zhang Jiuling (张九龄).

Completed November 2020

As an American around the same age, I had not heard of the case until Leverage.  I have not watched Loki and agree the writers should have given the audience more background.  However, I would like to pose an alternate possibility:  The writers of Loki expect a large portion of their viewers to have watched Leverage and gotten the explanation there. :)

I first heard of D B Cooper because of that Leverage episode, where this was the case from an FBI agent’s past that he couldn’t solve. I thought it was just a story for that TV show.

But it gets referenced in a bunch of other places. There’s even an episode of We Bare Bears that has a nod to it.

In the first episode of Loki, it’s revealed that Loki was D B Cooper - but with basically no explanation as to what the hell was going on or what they were talking about. It was just assumed that the audience would know what was being referenced. At least in Leverage, they spelled out what happened during the incident.

Is this just an incident that all Americans know about somehow? TV show writers can assume it’s just common knowledge with such confidence that they can reference a crime from the seventies and expect everyone in the audience to know what it’s about without needing to include an explanation.

LOL!  Oh I love this.  Poor Stephen. ‘Just because I’m short doesn’t make me a magical girl!”  Crane would take far too much enjoyment of Stephen dressed as a magical girl. 

Now I’m imagining a Magpie Lord/Card Captor Sakura crossover.  Crane and Tomoyo would bond over a shared love of clothes and forcibly dressing people up ... the more I think on this the more I’m convinced that Lord Crane and Tomoyo meeting would be fantastic (for the readers) and terrifying for everyone else. 

Sometimes, these absurd ideas just pop into my head. I’m sorry. Only not really.

Completed February 2021

Choosing Kindness Book Recs

I’m been thinking about stories and the types of things I like to read.  I usually think in terms of genre, I love fantasy and space opera and very specific types of romance to name a few.  But one type of story I really gravitate to isn’t tied to genre at all (though most of my examples are fantasy).  I love stories about genuinly good people doing their best to make the world a better place.  Now that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy stories about anti-heroes, rogues or very flawed characters, I do.  But there is a very unique flavor to these stories despite wildly different settings so thought I’d make a list of these types of stories.  Characters who, when given a choice, choose kindness.  I’ll add more as I think of them but please feel free to add on to this list with your own recs.

The Young Wizards series by Diane Duane  Book 1: So You Want to Be A Wizard 

All the Heralds of Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey  Book 1: Arrows of the Queen

The Order of the Air by Melissa Scott and Jo Graham  Book 1: Lost Things

Stealing Fire by Jo Graham (I don’t know if this trait carries over to the rest of the Numinous World books, I only just started reading the series, but Lydias is such a great character.  There are so many moments were he could be selfish or cruel and the world he lives in would excuse or even encourage it but he chooses kindness instead.)